CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
REBECCA
EVAN KISSES ME HELLO WHEN I greet him at the office the next day. I wasn’t sure what to expect: are we people who’ve fucked twice, or something more?
My heart flutters at the kiss, but it comes with hesitation. I’ve regretted it before when I’ve felt good about men in the past. I’m a weathervane that’s somehow always pointing in the wrong direction.
I lean in, matching the embrace. It’s brief but real. I wouldn’t initiate it, but Evan does. There’s presumption in the gesture, but it’s the kind I can live with.
We hold for just a few seconds. It’s sweet, but not sloppy.
I blink as we separate. I feel fizzy inside, like a freshly shaken soda.
“Ready to get to work?” he asks.
“I guess that depends. Did you get me carte blanche?”
Evan sighs. That means no.
“I told you, Evan. I’m only going to work on a LiveLyfe bonding initiative if I have free rein.”
He looks uncomfortable. “I can’t give you free rein, Becca. But—”
“Then no deal.” I don’t like how petulant I sound when I say it. I don’t mean to cross my arms; it’s knee-jerk, like when I screamed at him for saying he wanted to take care of me. I’m a minefield. Why a balanced guy like Evan would want to be on kissing terms with me is a mystery.
“Let me finish. I can’t give you totally free rein because that’s impossible in a multinational, multi-billion-dollar company. You understand that, right? Everyone from top to bottom can’t just be told to stay out of your way. What if you decide to buy Wells Fargo?”
“Well, obviously. I didn’t mean that kind of free rein.”
“It’s a continuum. You don’t get authority over my entire staff. You need a budget. You can’t just suck whatever you want from the corporate account.”
“Also obviously. I meant that—”
He raises a hand to stop me. “I’m just trying to make a point. You’ve already admitted that true carte blanche isn’t an option. My challenge is to figure out how much freedom I can give you between either extreme. And not to be an asshole, Becca, but you’re not always the easiest person to predict. If you can be straight with me about what exactly you’ll accept as a limitation and what will piss you off, maybe we can find our way. But if you tell me one thing and then snap—”
“Set me a budget. Whatever you think the project is worth.”
“I don’t know what the project is.”
“Neither do I. But I don’t want to be micromanaged. If you want me to do this, then you need to trust me. I built what I have by following my nose. I’ll figure out what shape it’ll take as I work on it. The budget can be my constraint. If I have a hundred grand to find ways to bond people to LiveLyfe, I’ll find a way to work with a hundred grand. If you think it’s worth a million, give me a million. If the result you’re after is worth ten million to the company, then let me spend that much. I’ll work whatever you give me.”
“The result is worth billions. Increasing user time spent on LiveLyfe by a significant percentage? That’s huge. The question is whether whatever you do is a small or large part of that result.”
I wave the discussion away. “You pick the budget. That’s not my business. But then tell everyone to stay out of my way and let me use it.”
“You’ll need some supervision, Becca. I don’t mean a middle manager following you around with a big coffee cup telling you to fill out TPS reports, but something. A check-in here and there, probably with marketing. There are some great people in marketing here in the Austin office.”
“No, Evan. I don’t like people keeping tabs on me. I don’t like the feeling of someone watching over my shoulder and telling me whether what I’m doing is good or bad. I work alone, my way, or not at all.”
“But what you’re doing is marketing,” Evan protests. I can tell he doesn’t want to insist outright, but I can also tell he strongly disagrees with my pitch. “At the very least, you’ll want to coordinate with Deborah about the branding angles we’re already taking, and—”
“I said no, Evan.” I see the look in his eyes, so I soften my demeanor. “This is just how I need to work. I understand if that’s not how things work at LiveLyfe. I won’t be offended if you say no — but I’ve been thinking of shutting my sideline gigs down to focus on this.”
“You’re shutting down the site? But how will the world know about Steve’s tiny dick?”
I don’t smile. I want to, but this is serious.
“I mean it, Evan. Please. Tell me now if this will work, because I don’t want to kill my sidelines if this job at LiveLyfe isn’t going to work out.”
Conflict crosses Evan’s face. He doesn’t want to agree, but it’s also become abundantly clear that he doesn’t want my focus elsewhere. He might joke about me shutting down my operation, but I know he’ll be glad for the lack of distraction. The “increasing LiveLyfe branding” project is a trojan horse for Evan; he wants me to do it just so I’ll be around the office all day, and available whenever he wants to pick my brain about the education plan.
We’re at an impasse. He doesn’t want to let the crazy Rebecca Presley off the leash inside his company, nor does he want to lose me.
He doesn’t want to lose me.
I hear the words as I think them. I feel stupid letting the thought clang with its double meaning, but I let it clang anyway. The thought warms me, like a blanket fresh from the dryer.
I wait. Evan matches my stare, but he said yesterday how pointless resistance feels against the depth of my eyes.
Another big exhale.
“Fine. We’ll work up a budget, and you can spend it however you’d like. Just …” Evan pauses, seeming to wonder if he should say what he’s thinking. “Just please try not to break anything in my company while you’re running around helping it.”
I reach out. I put my palm on his cheek. “Of course not.”
“I’m not comfortable working this way.”
“I know. It’s just how it has to be for me. No interference. No check-ins. Nobody sniffing around.”
“Okay.”
“Do you promise?”
Another long moment. Another sigh. Evan knows how much this matters to me. Of all the shitty boyfriend stories I’ve told him, the biggest always revolve around one thing: asshole men breaking their promises. Right now, knowing what he knows about me, I might as well be asking Evan to swear on his grandmother’s life. He might have been able to dodge before, but not if he agrees to this. The promise matters that much.
“Yes,” he says.